17.9.08

It's WWWAT time over at Rachel's place! If you're new to WWWAT, it's a monthly fotofest.. it's like Wordless Wednesday except with a twist... you can be as wordy as you want and there's a theme!
So this weeks theme is Beginnings & Endings. How appropriate since this blog is about ending a chapter and opening a new one! So of course, my ending is graduating High School! Here are the pictures I could find from it:
Me & some friends at Baccalaureate Mass.
Then for my new beginning, since I don't really have any pictures of getting to college, I decided to pick Bid Day of my sorority (for those of you that aren't familiar with the whole sorority system, Bid Day is the day your chosen sorority gives you a bid, which means you are accepted to join that sorority.) At my school because it is so small, we get to move into the sorority house right away, so these are my pictures of Bid Day, the beginning of my new life!
This is some of our new members (pledges). We were making the ΑΧΩ, (Alpha Chi Omega) symbols with our hands!
This is our entire pledge class (except for 2 people who came later)!
This is everyone, our entire house! There are like 60 something of us, I think?! Ha
Finally, I know it's not the best picture, but this is the moment we all became sisters. This was outside on the lawn as soon as all the bids were handed out. This is our first family photo!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my ending & beginning! If you wanna join, go over to Rachel @ American Mum Alien & link up!
Happy WWWAT!

16.9.08

It has happened, friends!
My blog has become something worth speaking of...
Today I was on Google Reader (yes I know it's shocking!) and trying to catch up on all your posts, since I have 119 unread items currently, and it's probably already gone up while I've been posting this! But never mind that. That is not the important part.
The part that is important is what caught my eye on the side of the page... something blue! A link...
TO MY BLOG!!! Under Google Recommendations! I was so excited! So immediately I went to go check my stats, because of course, this must mean more people are coming to read my blog right?!? (Despite my lack of really great search terms)
Wrong.
Well, at least according to Google Analytics. But it's ok. I was keeping my hopes up. I was ready. I was prepared for as Wendi put it for my readership to triple. I had my tech guy on speed dial, just in case I got so many hits, I crashed the server.
Until I read this. Apparently, not everyone's Google Reader Recommendations are the same. So does this mean I'm the only one who got recommended to my site.
So, it's disappointing, obviously. I mean I was so ready and prepared, you know?! I can take it. I will be ok. Don't worry!
I'll just go back to trying to figure out random search terms to get people to come to blog, oh wait that doesn't work either.
Well, there's still hope. The day is not over, and I am still recommended by Google Reader... at least on my Google Reader page.

14.9.08

So lately everyone has been posting these hilarious keyword posts, like the funniest keywords, according to Google Analytics that people Google to get their blogs. So, the first time I read one of these posts I immediately signed up for GA of course, because if you can't jump on blog bandwagons then what's the point right?! haha So, I occasionally check it to see how my site is doing, you know if I can be all like Sally Field and say "They like me, they really like me!" or just bust out in song like "Celebrate good times, come on!". [Why do I feel like all these references are before my time...?"] Anyway, sadly, I can't bust open the champagne sparkling cider just yet, because I have come to the conclusion that if someone were grading my blog, I would get a big fat "F" for a very disappointing performance.

Here are some facts about how popular my blog is:

So there's that whole graph thing that tells you how many hits you get a day... and there was 1 day that was really high, so I was all excited like "Wow, I must have written something really good that day" yeah... not so much. It was August 22, and I was all "August 22? Wait.. that's when I got to school... did I post that day?" Turns out that's the day Rachelguest posted for me. 129 visits! I wish I was making that up, but I'm really not! I don't have a single post that got even half that! I should give you some kind of award for that, Rachel!

The only keywords that lead to my site are pretty much a variation of my blog title- Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. I mean throw in Britney spears before that, or background music, or even notes or spell it wrong like Ia'm not a girl...

Ok. I lied I do have other keywords, I just didn't know where to find them.. but the disappointing performance still exists... because all but 1 keyword (which happens to be Alpha Chi Omega (my sorority) Fulton MO- very specific and I got a whole 4 visits from it!) have a 100% bounce rate... and their average time spent on my site?? 0:00 Nice.

My second highest day of most visits?? August 25... I didn't even post that day! So, more people come when I don't post than when I do? Hmm

The award for second best guest post goes to MommaBlogsAlot for the most time spent on one page... the average time was 11 minutes reading your post! Wow!

I hate complaining on here, because I don't want it to be like a pity party blog, but apparently people like it because my post from the other day when I was feeling down was the most popular so far! Woo hoo! I'll try to be in a bad mood more often... just kidding!

85.97% of my traffic... comes from referring sites. So, thank you to those of you who put me on your blog roll or linked to me in some way! At least you guys like me...

So, overall I would say the lesson of the day is get people who write kick ass blog posts to do it for you. Beg people to put you on their blogroll, since that's apparently the only way people come to your site. It's okay to have a pity party, people like pitying you!

And finally... write about crazy things like giant purple genitals (that one has stayed in my head forever) or boobs, and people will come.. maybe crazy people, but people!

**Disclaimer... this post is intended to be humorous, as in I'm poking fun at myself. It is not, I repeat NOT, a pity party. I love to blog & if people like me, great, if not that's ok too!